22 March 2008 - Kazakh New Year Celebration

This weekend we celebrated Kazakh New Year ("Nauryz"). They celebrate it on the 22nd of March because that is the beginning of Spring. On Friday, we were invited to a New Year celebration at a government run nursing home by the Deputy Director of Social and Labor Protection. We got there early and they let us take some pictures before the program started.The auditorium is as big as a theater. The cross-section of a yurt was set up on the stage as the back-drop for the program that was being presented. Kazakhs were Nomads and the yurts are their style of tents.

Here we are seated on the floor at a traditional Kazakh table inside the yurt. Roy is serenading me with a "Dombyra",a two stringed Kazakh instrument.At the table you can see many of their traditional foods. They have a soup that they make on New Years Day called "Nauryz kozhe" It is a milk based soup and has 7 ingredients in it (barley, beans and rice and what ever they have). They have fried bread sprinkled with powdered sugar called "Hkvorost" (in front of Roy), bite-sized pieces of fried bread called "Baursak" and "Chack Chack" which is little pieces of fried bread mixed with honey.
It's Anne and Mira, our translator who is Kazakh, sitting at the table in the yurt. Notice the beautiful hand pieced pillows and blankets in the back.

This is one of the ladies in the performance dressed in traditional Kazakh dress.

These ladies are also in traditional Kazakh dress.This man is also dressed in traditional Kazakh dress.

There were four different orphanages and nursing home groups that put on skits showing different Kazakh traditions. They did the engagement of the bride and groom, the birth of the baby, the naming of the baby and the baby's first step.

This is a picture of a "Besik" for a new born baby that the Kazaks use. This is like a small bassinet. They tie the baby to the board on the bottom.

This is a larger baby's bed that they also use. They don't name the baby until it is 40 days old because they feel it will protect the baby. When a child learns to walk they have a big celebration called "kesu" where they weave string between the baby's legs and a person in the family or a family friend who they respect a great deal, cuts the string.

All of these events in a persons' life were portrayed by these skits that were presented.

All of the skits had traditional Kazakh dancing.

And they all had a member of the cast play the traditional Kazakh instrument, Dombyra. All of the performances were judged and awards given.

After the program, we were honored to be invited to join the government officials for a traditional Kazakh dinner. We entered a room with a table elegantly set with a huge platter of "Beshbarmak" (Five Finger Meal) right in the center.

This is the platter. The bottom was covered with wide noodles and there was 25 lbs. of roast beef on top of that. They don't take any bones out of their meat. They even leave the large joints as you can see in the picture. There were also round casings which we hoped were sausage.!! They gave the honored guests, which were us and the Head of the Department of Languages the pieces with the biggest bones. They handed Roy a 5 lb. roast and Anne a 8 lb. roast to eat with our fingers.
It was good. They handed us some of the other meat and it was sausage. However, it was horse!! But it was good! They also had cooked intestines on the platter, but they didn't offer us any, of which we were thankful!!!


We also had the fried bread, pickled salad, stroganoff (made from liver, kidney and heart) and it was good. They had the homemade cottage cheese and they poured homemade sour cream over it, salty sour milk curds, and plenty of tomatoes, cucumbers, and dried apricots, raisins and fresh fruit and cheese. They also had homemade butter and "Chack Chack". They also had wine and tea and alcohol but we drank water. Everyone around the table had to give a toast and we each gave one too.


Damazhan, who is at the end of the table, is the one who invited us. They lady next to Roy kept putting food on his plate every time he ate a bite!! Mira had a wonderful time translating from Kazakh to us because everyone around the table spoke in Kazakh because it was a Kazakh holiday!! We had a wonderful time and lived through it all!! We will have to show you our other New Years' experiences later.

Michele and Kenny's Taryn, is scheduled for her open heart surgery on the 31st of March. If any of you would like to fast with us on the 30th, we would appreciate it. Thanks for your love and prayers!! We need them at this time!

Love,

Elder and Sister Welling